Communication

A Plea for "Mixed" Marriages

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
December 18, 1924

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To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

In connection with Dr. Eliot's address on Friday, may I venture an essay upon a troublesome topic. I shall have been satisfied simply if my words invite criticism. Dr. Eliot seems in my opinion to have fallen into that most hazardous of determinations--that of moral evaluation. I should quibble more precisely over the word "unfortunate"--which he applies to the tendency of Jews to intermarry. It depends more entirely upon what Dr. Eliot holds to be "fortunate." If two people--I choose not to use the word "race"--are so entirely divergent that there is small likelihood that they live harmoniously upon the same planet, I say it would be most "fortunate" that by fusion of the two one be obliterated, even though one strain be prepotent. . . .

If Dr. Eliot quotes the biologists to the effect that Jews are prepotent in intermarriage (the implication being that this is the sorest spot in the whole scheme). I mention another who maintains that fusion of Nordic and Jewish stock produces the finest product yet known to "civilization." What Dr. Eliot maintains as fact then, I hold to be, as yet, mere opinion. . . .

I say further that Dr. Eliot has not "noticed" far enough. What shall we do with the cases of Mathew Arnold, Montaigne, Disraeli and others, who, it seems to me, upset Dr. Eliot's argument that "they have not turned out well." . . . Are we to condemn that phase arbitrarily as unfortunate? Then condemn a large part of your race. . . .

If Dr. Eliot and others who regard the phase as worth one lota (of anything) to be considered, imply that greater bodily strength or more masterful physique are of mortal value to the world, then I say that it is much easier to impart this to Jews by blood, than to wait centuries until Jews return to muscle-building trades. Surely, you who praise immediate action and results, efficiency in short, cannot scoff at such an effective (though ludicrous) plan as I offer: and besides, if I am not mistaken, Mendel's units would substantiate my argument on the results, physically, on the offspring. Leo Slafsky '24.